| This study intends to show that many women writers of the nineteenth century used the archetype of the Great Goddess, in all her many forms, as a palimpsestic protest against the ways in which women were allowed to live and work. Because they felt confined in their roles as women and as artists, and concerned about the publishers who would critique their work, they chose to express their feelings by concealing the deeper levels of meaning beneath the surface of their writings. The Great Goddess archetype, a kind of forgotten code or script, helped them resurrect a new way of seeing and feeling, which they hoped would offer a promise of healing and rebirth in their ailing world. The one key element of the Great Goddess image that all the writers focused on was reverence for all life.;The twentieth century has done much to explore this archetype, but the examination of the image in nineteenth-century works has not been emphasized. Therefore, it is important to look at these works to find the "forgotten code" that has been included, and thus to set forth the positive images of women these writers intended. I have used feminist and mythological/archetypal critics to help analyze the works. Some of the key archetypal critics are Carl Jung, Erich Neumann, Carl Kerenyi, Erich Fromm, and Annis V. Pratt. Feminist critics include Barbara Walker, Cheryl Walker, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Merlin Stone, Elaine Showalter, Ellen Moers, and Emily Stipes Watts. Major authors included in this study are Mary Shelley, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Kate Chopin, and George Eliot, among others.;The Great Goddess image was fractured into many parts after the invasion of the patriarchal tribes in various waves from the North into Greece and the Near East and elsewhere (c. 4500--2500 BCE). This study uses several of these forms: Eve, Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Demeter/Persephone. It is my hope that this dissertation will help expand the study of nineteenth century women writers, whose work deserves more attention than it has had. |
